Exhausted and with upturned hands, my four year old child ran until
he pivoted anxiously in the centre of a field and studied the midday sky.
His limbs and torso wobbled together like a puppet upon entangled strings.
When he reached a fence, he inspected horizons while running backwards.
Then he passed nearby, as if I appeared to be another blade of grass to him,
inside this large field of many cow patties and golden capped mushrooms.
His mouth was poised and reminded me of his attempts to blow every candle.
While his long hair leapt through the sunlight, he was shouting at the birds.
On this same day, just after dusk, when the birds had ceased their singing,
my child demanded a return of a routine: he wanted to be carried over again
from his bath - cocooned inside a soft warm towel - to our noisy Vulcan gas heater,
where I'd smooth lotion to cover the little rivers of blood that flow from eczema.
It was then that he described the eagle he saw from the field today: the way it fell
and how he worried that more birds may fall and whether he could catch them.
